4.30.2010

THEME: "NEWBIE" (49D: Tyro, and a hint to this puzzle's theme)— add-a-"B" to beginning of familiar phrases, get wacky phrases, clue appropriately

Add-a-letter puzzles, as you know, do little-to-nothing for me. But at least this one has a clever theme-revealer — one more interesting than "BIN" or "BON" or whatever other answer might have been used. NEWBIE is a bit misleading, as only one of the answers actually has an OLD "B," but I can deal with that. Today, 3/4 of the theme answers are actually reasonably interesting, with only BOLD TIMER just taking up space. I wish I had a BLOG CABIN. Nothing but books, food, a bed, my dogs, and a computer. I'd probably miss my family inside of 48 hours, but ... I don't know. They can visit.

Theme answers:

17A: Daring track official? (BOLD TIMER)

10D: Clinton enjoying some R and R? (BILL AT EASE)

31D: Immortal comedian's donkey imitation? (BRAY OF HOPE)

63A: Online journalist's retreat? (BLOG CABIN)

I found this puzzle much harder than recent LAT Fridays have been, and, insofar as the difficulty came from cluing, I welcome the change. Today, much of my struggle had to do with not knowing what a KOKO (24A: "The Mikado" baritone), a GREBE (30A: Dabchick, for one), or a VERGER is (36D: Church caretaker, in Chelsea). Only way I knew KEKO was wrong was that I had the grilled filled in and yet — no Mr. Happy Pencil (actually my software doesn't give me Mr. Happy Pencil ... I miss him). I also misspelled SHARI (57A: First name in puppetry) (as SHERI), but that was easily fixed in the cross.

Crosswordese 101: EMIL Zátopek (1A: Four-time Olympic gold-medal runner Zátopek) — Probably not the most common EMIL you'll run across in the grid, but common enough for me to have encountered him multiple times. If you've never heard of him before, just be glad you didn't encounter him the first time the way that I did — as a last name. Yeesh. Try figuring out the letters in ZATOPEK on a tough Friday. Nightmare. EMIL Jannings is probably the most common EMIL — he's an olde-timey actor. There's also the title character from "EMIL and the Detectives," pianist EMIL Gilels, and Expressionist painter EMIL Nolde.

What else?

47A: Matriarchal nickname (GRAN) — I call my GRAN "Grandma," so this took a long time. I actually had "-RAN" and thought "... FRAN?" I'm going to my Grandma's 90th birthday party in St. Maries, Idaho in just three weeks. Can't wait. I may or may not have created ... something ... for the occasion, which I may or may not share with you. Eventually. As longtime readers know, my Grandma is the first person I ever saw work a crossword puzzle.

7D: Jennyanydots's creator, initially (TSE) — my thoughts: "that name is so stupid that it must be one of those stupid cats from "Cats"; other thought: "just write TSE; it's the most common literary monogram in puzzledom."

40D: Juju or grigri (TALISMAN) — seriously, between this clue, and the GREBE clue, and the TSE clue, it's like Silly Word Day up in this puzzle. "Grigri!"

By the time you read this, I will be on a plane to Los Angeles, or (if you read late in the day) already there, basking in the warmth of Santa Monica and the friendship of my friends who live in the area (as well as that of PuzzleGirl and PuzzleSister, with whom I'm having dinner). I'm in CA for the "Crosswords L.A." charity tournament, which takes place at Loyola-Marymount University tomorrow, 5-1-10. I'm judging. So is frequent LAT puzzle constructor Doug Peterson. Tyler Hinman and Andrea Carla Michaels are doing color commentary for the finals. All L.A.-area folk should definitely consider turning out. A low-key good time will be had by most, I figure. For more info, go here.

For some reason, I was just not feeling this puzzle. Seems like every section was a struggle. I even thought there might be a rebus for a while until I remembered that the L.A. Times doesn't do rebuses. Maybe it's because I started out sure that 1-Across would be DOVE and not DIAL (1A: Ivory alternative). When the downs in the NW corner aren't working, that kinda throws me off. With the -DI- in plase at 1-Down, I couldn't see DINGBAT (1D: Birdbrain) because I couldn't get DIMWIT out of my head even though it didn't fit. Also, BOO (23A: "Eek!" elicitor) was completely eluding me because, again, my first though — MOUSE — just wouldn't fit.

The theme is okay, although not terribly sparkly. GROW LIGHT is kinda of cool. Makes me think of illicit plants being grown in a locked room in a basement. Just me? Okay, whatever. I don't love seeing SLOW LEARNER in the grid. It's a legitimate phrase, but it seems kind of … crass. Cluing a dog with a "?"-clue of another type of dog? I can't decide if that's cute or not.

Eventually I worked everything out and did feel a sense of accomplishment but it just seemed hard for me and not necessarily fun.

4.28.2010

THEME: "Eat Me"—Food dishes that include names are clued as if they have something to do with famous people with that first name.

To accommodate the 12-letter central answer, the grid's been stretched to 16 squares wide. You can't center an entry with an even number of spaces within a grid with an odd width.

Theme entries:

18a. [Response to comic Anderson's "What's for dinner?"?] is CRAB LOUIE or rather, "crab, Louie." I was thinking this classic comedy bit was Louie Anderson, but it's the similarly girthed John Pinette:

21a. [Response to Spanish tenor Kraus's "What's for dinner?"?] is CHICKEN ALFREDO. Fettuccine Alfredo is more familiar to me than this chicken dish, which in turn is more familiar to me than Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus, whom I've never heard of. YouTube reveals the winning combination of opera chops and a silly mustache.

37a. [Response to Revolutionary Arnold's "What's for breakfast?"?] is EGGS BENEDICT. Not sure why the R is capitalized. And what's with rehabilitating his image? He's most famous for being a traitor.

58a. [Response to actress Bracco's "What's for brunch?"?] is QUICHE LORRAINE. She played Dr. Melfi on The Sopranos.

This grid is notable for the stacking of the theme entries at the top and bottom as well as the 28 longish (6 to 8 letters long) non-theme answers. The short fill includes a number of clunkers, though.

Join me in a stroll through the grid to see what's here:

5a. [Penn. crosser] is a TNPK., as in the Pennsylvania Turnpike that runs across the state.

17a. [Singer Morissette]'s first name is ALANIS. I love her downbeat acoustic cover of Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps." If you hate that song, you may love this version.

4d. Good clue for JOB-HOP: [Change positions often]. I was thinking of jostle and fidget.

19d. [__ fire under] clues the two-word partial entry LIT A.

30d. [Dull finish?] doesn't rescue -ARD. Nobody likes a dangling suffix answer. At least -ard is in the dictionary as a suffix with a specific meaning. Did you know that it's mostly used negatively? Nobody wants to be dullard, drunkard, or dotard. Wizard, though, is a positive word. -ARD is in a pile-up of ick, with partial ME I and Roman numeral MDC (which at least had a workable math clue, 32d: [CLX x X]. 100 times 10 = 1000/M, 50 times 10 = 500/D, 10 x 10 = 100/C.

36d. TNS is used to abbreviate "tons" ([Heavy wts.]), but how pointless is that? An abbreviation that drops only one letter? I just saw TNS in another puzzle recently and thought it stunk. I'm surprised to see it again so soon, because it feels like an answer I have rarely encountered in crosswords.

Crosswordese 101: I wasn't quite conscious of there being two famous LALOs in music. Today's LALO is 15a: [Composer Schifrin], and that is the most frequently used LALO clue. LALO Schifrin composed the Mission: Impossible theme. Less commonly, LALO will be clued as French composer Edouard LALO, who composed Symphonie espagnole and Le Roi d'Ys, among other things.

4.27.2010

Theme: Rhyme Time — Theme answers are familiar two-part phrases where the two parts rhyme.

Theme answers:

20A: Blondness (FAIR HAIR).

22A: There may not be one "in the house" during a tearjerker (DRY EYE).

32A: Cat's pajamas (BEE'S KNEES).

37A: Like some stockings (THIGH-HIGH).

47A: Captain Ahab feature (PEG LEG).

50A: Fan of Jerry Garcia's band (DEADHEAD).

3D: Flight of scientists to another nation, e.g. (BRAIN DRAIN).

27D: "The original gourmet" candy bean (JELLY BELLY).

I really, really enjoyed this puzzle … up until the very last box I filled in. But I'll get to that later. For now, let's just talk about all the awesomeness. The theme is fun. All kinds of different lengths, acrosses and downs, encompassing old-timey phrases, pirates, the Grateful Dead and hosiery — what's not to love?

Lots of snappy fill including the colloquial POP IN, "I'M EASY" and "NO RUSH" (9A: Stop by unexpectedly / 5D: "No argument from me" / 33D: "You can get it to me later").

Rex mentioned the K-CAR (7D: 1980s Chrysler product) over at his blog this weekend: "If a car is going to be named after a letter, that is the letter to name it after, I say." Agreed! And finally, I love seeing PET ROCK in the grid (9D: Faddish '70s toy that came in a box with air holes), but it sure does make you think about how gullible we all were back then. Kids these days still have those dumb "pets" but now they're electronic. Does that make it better or worse? I'm really not sure.

So, okay. The one box I didn't like? That would be the W in WHANG (35D: Cymbal sound). WHANG? Really? CHING maybe. CLANG okay. WHANG? Not so much. Go ahead and explain to me in the comments why it's totally acceptable, it's in a dictionary, anybody who knows anything about music, blah, blah, blah. It just sounds wrong to me and I don't like it. Also, I wasn't completely sure of 35D: Houdini's family name (WEISS). Of course, W seems like the most likely letter there, but with a name it could be almost anything. The good news, though, is that the puzzle totally redeemed itself in a very tricky way that I completely love. Did you notice that both constructors' names are in the grid? Yes they are! Nice job, Pete and Sue! (47D: Tennis's Sampras (PETE); 52A: "What are you gonna do about it?!" ("SUE ME!").)

4.26.2010

THEME: "What?" — four theme answers have that clue; answers are all colloquial ways of asking "What?"

Theme is cute, if slightly wobbly. Obviously, answers were chosen at least in part of symmetricality, so you've got a first person pronoun in 58A: "What?" ("I BEG YOUR PARDON") but not in 20A: "What?" ("DIDN'T CATCH THAT"), despite the fact that the reverse would sound more natural — people say "BEG YOUR PARDON" all the time without the "I" in front, "DIDN'T CATCH THAT" less so. Also, "SAY AGAIN" (45A: "What?") is not a familiar phrase to me, though it was highly inferrable. The phrase, as I know it, is "COME AGAIN?" But again, "COME AGAIN" would screw up your rotational symmetry with "EXCUSE ME" (32A: "What?"). This is what I mean by "wobbly" — the actual answers make me think of different, good answers that weren't used and better ways of phrasing answers that were. Still, it all seems tight enough for an LAT Monday. Also, the overall fill is super solid, especially for a grid with a tone of 4-letter words. Not once did I wince or think "ugh." Oh, wait, I didn't see ESME (70A: Salinger heroine). That one I could do without. And there's a smattering of crosswordese here and there, but only a smattering, and an inoffensive smattering at that. I don't enjoy doing Roman numeral division in the middle of my solve (66A: CC ÷ XXV => VIII), but with GROOVY (49D: Old-fashioned "Cool!") as one of the crosses on that answer, the enjoyment factor returned.

[XENA!? (33D: TV warrior princess)]

Crosswordese 101: NEVE Campbell (42A: Actress Campbell) — there is exactly one viable crossword NEVE: NEVE Campbell. She was pretty famous, seems like, oh, a decade ago, as a cast member of the FOX series "Party of Five" (1994-2000) and then, making out with Denise Richards, in "Wild Things" (1998). I have no idea what she's been doing lately, though she appears to have been a guest voice on "The Simpsons" just last year.

What else?

5D: Hostess offerings (CUPCAKES) — clues like this can make a huge difference (relatively speaking) in my solving times. Couldn't just throw it down, even with a couple crosses in place, because "Hostess" was ambiguous (I, of course, though it referred to someone hosting a party ... which, I suppose, it could, if the party in question was a child's birthday party — I think it's safe to say that "Hostess" here is the snack cake company).

41D: Book report, e.g. (SYNOPSIS) — again, slowed down by a long Down. Had the SYN- and started thinking "are 'book' and 'report' SYNONYMS of one another ...?" No. Overthinking it. "O" in ORBITS got me back on track.

44D: Edith, to Archie (DINGBAT) — aargh. Had the DING- and was surprised when DINGIE wouldn't fit. Not surprisingly, I was confusing my abusive overweight 70s sitcom characters — Mel called Vera "DINGIE" ("DINGY?" "DINGHY?") while Archie called Edith "DINGBAT."

4.24.2010

THEME: No theme today—It's a themeless puzzle, just like every other Saturday. I always wonder how many people get accustomed to figuring out themes the rest of the week and rack their brains trying to tease out a theme from a Saturday grid.

Happy birthday to PuzzleGirl! She hits the big three-O today, and you'd never know it to look at her. Andrea Carla Michaels and Doug Peterson and PuzzleSister Elizabeth Olson White teamed up to make a birthday crossword for Andrea; you can get it here.

Happy birthday to my son Ben, too. He's turning 10. Double digits! There is no denying his tween status. Yesterday, he tuned the car radio to a pop hits station for the first time and identified that song I thought was by a woman as a song by Justin Bieber. Oh! The 15-year-old singin' boy does a good falsetto. No wonder the girls go wild for him.

Today's puZZle is packed with the letter Z and its friends. You've got your QUIZZICAL and PAPARAZZI, [Übermensch philosopher] NIETZSCHE with his five-consonant pile-up, ZOOMING ZEALOTS, the papal Star Wars conclave of JEDI and JOHN PAUL I, and more. After putting in my first answer, MOLOKAI, I gambled that the [Big name in publishing] would be KNOPF (20A) owing to its oddball consonant pairs, and that pointed the way towards the overall Scrabbliness-on-speed of the crossword. Either the clues were really easy or I coasted on Sam's wavelength, as sub-4:00 themelesses are not my norm.

Favorite bits, on top of the aforementioned words:

If you've got to have crosswordese geography names URAL and ARAL, why not cross them? We've got 15A: [Evaporating sea] for ARAL and 7D: [Kazakhstan river] for URAL. I can't tell you what a disappointment it was for me last November when Ural Williams didn't show up for my high school class reunion. I knew his name was crosswordese when we were 14, but never got a chance to discuss it with him. I am astonished to see no listing for URAL in the Crosswordese 101 index.

Speaking of crosswordese geography, OREM gets dressed up with a fresh clue—16A: [Utah home of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival]. Call me a nerd if you must, but sometimes I appreciate it when lame repeaters get new clues. Surprisingly, OREM hasn't been XW101ed yet, either. That one's easy—4-letter Utah town = OREM. 4-letter Russian town = OREL, which is also the first name of pitcher Orel Hershiser. Oh, unless the Russian town starting with O is ORSK or OMSK—just to keep you off balance.

30A: ELIA KAZAN usually gets the crosswordese fill-in-the-blank (FITB) treatment with just ELIA in the grid, but he gets the full name this time. Man, without "Kazan" in the clue, ["Gentlemen's Agreement" Oscar winner] was a mystery to me.

1D: The [Groundbreaking invention] isn't so amazing after all. It's a PICKAXE, which may be used to hack away at the ground.

4D: [Dime novels] are PULPS. Rex Parker's non-crossword blog is Pop Sensation, where he writes about pulp fiction book covers. Do they call 'em PULPS, Rex?

6D, 22D. For [Star chasers], I wanted something like ASTRONOMERS to fit, but it turned out to be the double-Z PAPARAZZI. The other kind of stars figure into [Stellar]/ASTRAL.

I have no idea who 38D: [Russian supermodel Vodianova] is, but with the N in place, NATA**A was likely. Turned out to be NATALIA rather than NATASHA. According to New York magazine, she's got three kids and is an activist on behalf of Russian orphans. Check this out: One of her kids is named Neva, after the 4-letter river crossword solvers know and love.

Crosswordese 101: URAL! At long last! The usual clues touch on these points: It's the name of a Russian and Kazakh river that feeds the Caspian Sea as well as the mountain range that separates Europe and Asia.

Now, I've made it all the way to the end of the post without including a video. I refuse to embed Justin Bieber in this blog, much less your consciousness. How about Bill Shannon instead? He's a performance artist and dancer who's created his own art form, dancing with the crutches he's always used to walk because of a congenital hip deformity. Words in the crossword that may relate, however tenuously, to this video include FLEXES, ZOOMING, and IMPRESS. Mainly I just wanted to share it because it's cool. You can find Shannon's street and stage performances on YouTube too. Like carrying a suitcase by putting it on a skateboard and clamping it between his lower legs, or whirling around in the air like a breakdancer who's elevated his game a few feet off the ground.

4.23.2010

This is pretty low-end stuff. A cynical, pointless add-a-letter puzzle. It's Friday, so why not ... "W?" What's the rationale? Why "W?" You could do this puzzle again, with the same base phrases, with at least three different other letters (please, please don't). Personally, I like "F," if only for the answer you'd get at 48A, but "M" might make more sense. Whatever. The point is there's just zero ambition behind this. Crank it out. Here you go. On to the next. If this kind of forgettable cookie-cutter stuff gets published routinely, why *not* just crank it out?

Theme answers:

17A: Stonemason's goal? (WALL IN A DAY'S WORK)

27A: Flirt's mascara stains? (WINK BLOTS)

48A: Dermatology class videos? (WART FILMS)

62A: Inherited wealth? (WILL-GOTTEN GAINS)

Are they cute, charming, clever answers? Some, I guess. Maybe. But, in the words of this puzzle, HO HUM (31D: Boring).

It's hard not to like KRAKATOA (39D: Volcano in the Sunda Strait), and FABIO added a ray of sunshine to the experience as well (36D: One-named male model). I'm pretty sure kids can actually say the simple word "dog." The clue on BOW WOW suggests something a cutesy, baby-talking parent would say more than it does what an actual TYKE would say (10D: Certain pet, in totspeak). The overall fill, in general, is inoffensive. That's the best thing I can say about the puzzle today.

Crosswordese 101: ERSE (65A: Celtic language) — HA ha, how is this *not* on our list after more than a year's time??? Maybe that's a sign that it hasn't been used much, which is a very promising trend. ERSE is the worst kind of old school crosswordese (a valid answer, but one you don't want to trot out unless you are under duress). It's essentially another word for "Gaelic." With its obscenely common letters in unusual combination, it's a very handy piece of 4-letter fill. Too handy. Constructors should shun it. Except when they can't.

4D: Kelso and Funny Cide (GELDINGS) — this answer looks pretty good in the grid, and I like the clue, in that (at least for me) the answer wasn't immediately obvious. Needed crosses. Nice to have to do some work on a Friday.

15A: Bobby's informant (NARK) — NARK Matthews provided Bobby Kennedy with all kinds of important information when Bobby was Attorney General ...

52A: Chiwere speaker (OTOE) — I've got OTOE on speed dial. Four letters, even vaguely Native American-looking clue: OTOE. Now it could be CREE or HOPI, or even OTOS, dagnabbit, but OTOE (3/4 vowels) is a good bet. Use crosses if you're not confident.

4.22.2010

Theme: "Lily Tomlin" — Theme answers are familiar phrases the first word of which is a type of lily.

Theme answers:

18A: Father of Sam and Charlie (TIGER WOODS).

20A: South Pacific site of large stone statues (EASTER ISLAND).

35A: Continuously (DAY AFTER DAY).

54A: Asian draft animal (WATER BUFFALO).

57A: "All of Me" actress whose first name is a hint to this puzzle's theme (LILY TOMLIN).

I'm running late this morning so this will be quick. I thought this was a perfectly serviceable puzzle. No major complaints. Well, I'm not crazy about seeing TIGER WOODS in my grid these days but you probably shouldn't get me started. Haven't seen "The Soloist," with Jamie Foxx co-starring Robert DOWNEY, Jr., but it looks pretty interesting (9D: "The Soloist" co-star). I'm not sure that FALSE FACE is a thing (34A: Mask), and the last letter I put in the grid was the X at the cross of NO-TAX and MEAT AX (64A: Feature of Oregon sales / 43D: Spareribs separator). I couldn't make sense of either of those clues. Sorry to blog and run, but that's just how it is today. Have fun in the comments.

Crosswordese 101: ADELA Rogers St. Johns is an author/writer/journalist. Do I know anything about her? Why no. No, I don't. I just know that's her name and so far that has served me pretty well.

4.21.2010

THEME: "Would You Keep It Down Out There?!?"—This puzzle wants to know what all the noise is, and provides plenty of it

Theme entries:

17A. [Consequence of the subprime mortgage fiasco] is the REAL ESTATE CRASH. Crashes are indeed loud. Yesterday when I picked my son up after school, a few of the yellow buses ful of kids managed to crash. Everyone was OK, but one bus needed to be towed, one kid got checked out at the ER, a bunch of school staff lost their afternoons, and 100 kids were two hours late getting home that day. As for me and my kid, we enjoyed the sunshine, the playground, and watching all the emergency vehicles (seven!) on site.

25A. [Exit spectacularly] clues GO OUT WITH A BANG.

42A. [Punished severely, with "on"] is LOWERED THE BOOM.

55A. [Complaint from one trying to concentrate, perhaps—and this puzzle's title] clues "WHAT'S THAT RACKET?"

I like Donna's clueing style—they're not the super-tough tricky clues I'm so fond of, since she mostly does puzzles in the easy-to-medium range, but they've got panache. Among my favorite clues are these ones:

10A. [One of Hammett's Charleses] is NORA, of Nick and Nora Charles and their dog Asta fame. Never read those stories, never saw any of hte movies. But I did love the entirely unrelated movie, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

20A. ESS is a "meh" answer, but [Start of something?] sounds like something more interesting.

36A. [Blin, in Blois] is almost incomprehensible. The plural of blin is blini (which feels much more familiar to me), and a single blin is essentially a CREPE. Blois must be some place where French is spoken, but I can't say I've ever heard of it. Oddball words in a standard alliteration clue—not the usual.

51A. [Hit or miss?] is a VERB. Yep, I usually fall for the clues that want you to come up with VERB or RHYME or SYNONYM but use words that have another meaning that sits in the forefront, distracting you.

My favorite answer is BEEFCAKE (9D: [Stud muffin photos]), though I prefer chocolate cake when it comes to dessert.

I remember OINGO Boingo (27D: [New Wave band __ Boingo]) from early-'80s MTV. Apparently their biggest song was from the 1985 movie Weird Science, which I never saw because I was by then a sophisticated college student who didn't want to watch movies for teens. Lots of troubling psychosexual issues are at play in the video (and, I hear, the movie). You know Danny Elfman, who composed the theme to The Simpsons and has scored movies? He was in Oingo Boingo.

Crosswordese 101: Rex has previously covered the word ORIEL (26D: [Bay window]). Is there any long-time solver of crosswords who doesn't store ORIEL and OSIER in the same part of their brain?

Some people really don't like the kind of theme where each theme answer is clued with the same word. I think the argument is that the theme answers themselves aren't always stand-alone phrases. I totally get that, but I still like those kinds of themes. And this puzzle puts a different twist on it which I think makes it even better. The theme answers aren't simply definitions of RIGHT, they're definitions that all kinda relate to each other. Not sure if I'm explaining myself well, but basically I'm saying I like it.

There was, however, a tad too much crosswordese for my liking. I mean, when you've got AIDA, ODIN, ADEN, and EDAM all hanging out together, that's just … too much of a good thing. Or something. Nothing else really jumped out at me. I was a big RHODA fan back in the day (26D: Valerie Harper role) and I like today's clue for KNEEL (67A: Prepare to be knighted) more than the typical marriage proposal clue. Other than that, I think HOBO is the sparkliest thing in the grid, and when you're looking at a HOBO for sparkliness, you've gotta kinda wonder.

Crosswordese 101: As we learn in today's clue, NEC is, indeed a 21D: Japanese information technology giant. According to Wikipedia, "The company used the name Nippon Electric Company, Limited before re-branding in 1983. It still goes by the full name in Japan." Clues for NEC will look like this: "IBM competitor," "Maker of many ATMs," "Japanese computer giant," and "Big name in computers."

4.19.2010

THEME: Baseball names in non-baseball contexts — familiar phrases where final word happens to be name of a Major League Baseball team

Fastest puzzle of the year. I'm waist-deep in baseball right now (wallowing, mostly, as my Red Sox are doing their best to suck worse than any team has sucked in the history of sucking right now). But even if I hadn't been a fan, this puzzle would have been easy. The only issue is XIAN (18A: Central Chinese tourist city) — a total outlier in a puzzle full of otherwise utterly familiar stuff. We should develop a program that will show just how much of the fill in any given puzzle has shown up in our Crosswordese 101 segment before. Feels like a lot today, though possibly no more than your typical Monday puzzle. Could've done without the ESSEN / ESSES pair, and YEOW is not an intuitive spelling for me, but otherwise, it was a fine, inoffensive puzzle.

Theme answers:

20A: San Francisco players not paying attention? (SLEEPING GIANTS)

25A: Minnesota players from old Bangkok? (SIAMESE TWINS)

49A: Anaheim players tripping over their own feet? (FALLEN ANGELS)

57A: Pittsburgh players from old Algiers? (BARBARY PIRATES)

Don't like that two of these have the "from old [somewhere]" in the clue. Make all clues follow same wording, or let them all be different, but don't give two the same wording and the others something else. Feels sloppy and uneven. Also, BARBARY PIRATES, while an acceptable phrase, certainly isn't as coherent and snappy and familiar as the others. I know BARBARY COAST. I just inferred BARBARY from crosses, and got PIRATES from the clue.

Crosswordese 101: ENUF (32D: A sufficient amount, in slang) — the crossword loves its variants of "enough." There's this one, which is super stupid and is used only in *written* "slang" (where, exactly, I don't know — advertisements and crappy band names, probably); and then there's the higherbrow ENOW — a poetic, bygone, Shakespearean version of the same thing. If Shakespeare had tweeted, he'd have used ENUF. Otherwise, like any sensible person, he'd have stayed the hell away from it. "'NUFF said." (an expression I hate worse than almost any other)

Bullets:

36A: Artist M.C. known for illusionary work (ESCHER) — tearing through this puzzle, I had ESCHE- and confidently dropped a "W" in that slot without ever looking at the clue. Mistake.

9D: Mötley Crüe duo? (UMLAUTS) — by now, you should be seeing straight through tricks like this.

29D: Chain restaurant with a blue roof (IHOP) — went there just yesterday, where wife got the saddest, limpest, palest excuse for a waffle ever. Boooo. Too bad I can't stay made at IHOP. I just love it too much. I love it from back when it had a kangaroo mascot. I am an IHOP NERD (nice juxtaposition).

53A: Word in an oxymoronic Michael J. Fox movie title (FUTURE) — as in "Back to the." I was thinking "what's oxymoronic about 'Doc Hollywood' or 'Teen Wolf'?"